Yen's Fulvetta (1 Viewer)

[Taphrospilus]

Schoeniparus variegaticeps (Yen, 1932) OD here

The Eponym Dictionary of Birds claims.

Yen's Fulvetta Alcippe variegaticeps Yen, 1932 [Alt. Goldenfronted Fulvetta; Syn. Pseudominla variegaticeps]
Kwok Yung Yen (also known as Yen Kwokyung) (fl.1915–at least 1951) was a Chinese ornithologist at Sun Yatsen University, Canton (Guangzhou), China (1930–1951). He wrote scientific descriptions of several birds (1934) that had been collected in Malaya (Malaysia) (1905) and lodged in several the Selangor State Museum by H. C.Robinson (q.v.), who was the curator there.

As not a scientific name I assume no entry in the old key. I hope he is nevertheless of interest. A least he is author of some new species/subspecies e.g. Leiothrix argentauris tahanensis (Yen, 1934), Heterophasia desgodinsi tonkinensis (Yen, 1934), Napothera epilepidota delacouri Yen, 1934, Sinosuthora alphonsiana stresemanni (Yen, 1934). Maybe someone knows his life dates?

 

[l_raty]

In Chinese: 任国荣. (Pinyin: Ren Guorong.)
(E.g., see the last references on p. 644 in http://museum.ioz.ac.cn/files/20130410122411062.pdf )

https://baike.baidu.com/item/任国荣/18709140

1907-1987.

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

Martin, remember that we fairly recently dealt this the same Author/Auctor (and the same University, and its namesakes) in November last year, when we had a look at the equally obscure dedicatee behind "Tribura tacsanowskia chui YEN 1933", in the thread Eponymical challenges (here) see the posts #33–40 (even if somewhat impassable, though hopefully not impossible).



At that point I made a 'complete' list of all the birds (all in all 11 taxa, regardless if today valid, or not), all described by this guy (between 1932–1937), with most OD found (even if not all).

If you're interested I can try to sort out my notes (and post all of it here) ... as soon as time allows (if, at that point, still needed, of course).

Cheers

B

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

I see that Laurent (quick as always) already have come up with a suggestion (in post #2) of whom the dedicatee might be ...

Either way, I just had a quick glance through my notes about this guy, and there he was, as:

Possibly this guy: Kwok-Yung Yen (Guorong Ren, 任国荣) ... ?!? , an ornithologist mentioned (though only in brief, in passing, in context) in the following piece/Paper, about Tso-Hsin Cheng [*]: The founder of modern ornithology and zoogeography in China (here or/alt. here), by the Chinese Authors Fumin Lei and Gang Song.

---

*Tso-Hsin Cheng (1906–1998) a k a Zuoxin Zheng (郑作新) commemorated in Locustella chengi Alström, Lei, et al., 2015.

I did send Fumin Lei (one of the authors of the paper above) an e-mail last Autumn (2020), but without any response what-so-ever, about Mr Yen (or Ren, alt. even Yung, or Kwok ?) ...

Thus, take it for what it's worth.

/B

PS. Also from my notes: "(If searched for any further); he is most certainly not to be confused with the Chinese microbiologist "Yuen Kwok-yung" (that/this certain guy is still going, still active, born in 1956)"

 

[l_raty]

I did send Fumin Lei (one of the authors of the paper above) an e-mail last Autumn (2020), but without any response what-so-ever, about Mr Yen (or Ren, alt. even Yung, or Kwok ?) ...

任 (Ren or Yen) was his family name. (The family name always comes first in Chinese -- even though, when names get romanised, it is frequent that the sequence gets reverted. Chinese family names are almost always one Chinese character/syllable.)

国荣 (Kwokyung/Kwok-Yung or Guorong/Guo-Rong) was his given name. (This always comes after the family name in Chinese. In most cases it is two characters/syllables, although one character/syllable is not exceptional either. Even if more than one character, the given name is a single word; it can not be understood as a first name followed by a middle name. (I.e., there was no Mr Yung or Mr Kwok here.))

The pdf from which I took his Chinese name (1st link in post #2 above) was a 1963 paper by Tso-Hsin Cheng / Zheng Zuoxin / 郑作新, where the Chinese name was appended to his romanised name ("Yen, K. Y. (任国荣)") in a list of references.
The second link in this post, from which I took the dates, is to a biographical article about "任国荣 (香港中文大学著名鸟类学家)" ("Ren Guorong (famous ornithologist of the Chinese University of Hong Kong)") on Baidu Baike -- a Chinese collaborative online encyclopedia -- which states explicitly that he described Alcippe variegaticeps. According to this article, he left Sun Yatsen and moved to Hong Kong in 1949. (And he moved again in 1985 to Canada, where he died in 1987.)

 

[PScofield]

More great multilingual work from Laurent! So to summarise:

任国荣 Ren Guorong (1907-1987)

Born Huiyang, China 1907
Died Toronto, Canada April 1987

 

[Björn Bergenholtz]

🚦That would be the way to write it in Pinyin (Hanyu Pinyin alt. Hànyǔ Pīnyīn) ...

If we're about to use it as such (in Ornithology), we'll have to change the Authorship (Yen) on quite a few taxa!

And I don't think all the Taxonomists and/or Nomenclaturists are too keen on such alterations, but who knows ... ? 🤔

Either way, most papers (very close to all) that I've seen, written by this guy (or in reference to his Papers) was signed/typed by/as "Yen" (either with, or without, both the initials; most often; K.Y., alt. K.J., or just K.)

This far, I'd go for the Western version of it: Kwokyung/Kwok-Yung/Kwok Yung Yen (alt. Yen Kwokyung/Kwok-Yung/Kwok Yung, in the Eastern/Chinese order/way), if correct of course ... 🙄

For what it's worth.

B